Whats your views on Bitcoins

[rreeve]

Been doing quite a lot of research on bitcoins this last week and I'm still undecided on it so I thought I'd ask for opinions on here.

I can't decide if it's a genius decentralized alternative to regular currency that could ultimately remove governments and central banks from manipulating the flow of currency.

OR

If it's the start of the cashless society where everyone has credits that's been covertly introduced by the illuminati. The reported inventor of the bitcoin algorithm is a mysterious man called Satoshi Nakamoto who we know very little about as he has distanced himself from the system.

The thing is, I can't see how it could be manipulated by anyone as it's completely anonymous and completely safe. It's completely decentralized and very predictable. Unless the illuminati are willing to hand over all control of the money, I can't see why they would create it.

I'm a conspiracy theorist at heart with a very suspicious mind when it comes to these sorts of things, especially with what we all know about their plans for globalization and the one world currency. But I just don't get how bitcoins could be their final solution because it's technically brilliant in a way where NOBODY has any power. In regards to the system you could have 1BTC or 1millionBTC it makes no difference in terms of power and influence as it's totally self-contained and totally transparent.

I'd like to hear some opinions on this. I know it's been around for a year or two but it's starting to really take shape now and it's getting interesting.

[herzmeister]

some threads already yeap...

Not too astonishing that Nakamoto wants to stay anonymous. Remember wars are being waged for the control of nations' currencies.

Some users investigated and Bitcoin seems to have been conceived at the University of Dublin, but it's nothing official of course: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=67840.0

I say it again, the future of money is digital anyway (also it is to a degree already), if we don't destroy ourselves that is.

So there is already Facebook Credits, Google Wallet, Apple Passport, Microsoft Points etc...

I guess one of those will make it first, because people are sheeple.

But it's good to have an open source, decentralized version. I guess Bitcoin will at least at first be like the Linux desktop of digital payment. Everyone knows it's free (as in speech), but only a small fraction of people actually use it.

[danster82]

I think its awsome, near enough perfect in it design.

currently its mainly used as an investment rather than transactions, but as time goes on and more and more people get involved it will be used for more and more transactions until it becomes a true alternate currency.

Made 25% return on bitcoin in the last month btw.

I dont think bitcoin or alternate currencys are a conspiracy as personally I was predicting them in 2006 so I was expecting it to happen anyway and did plan on investing in any startups if I had any money that was.

Theres only 21 million bitcoins that can be created and you can have indefinatley smaller and smaller denominations, if you go back in time and could buy an Apple or berkshirehathaway share for £3 you do it, this is the same thing staring you in the face now.

[bagatell]

Originally Posted by danster82

I think its awsome, near enough perfect in it design.

But it has been hacked several times.

[danster82]

Originally Posted by bagatell

But it has been hacked several times.

Bitcoin was never hacked but a private exchange was hacked (mtgox).

[unknown11]

bitcoins are great for stuff like SilkRoad where exchange is anonymous

[toxicvibes]

rreve just go for it and try.
There is nothing to lose, last summer me and a friend made some really nice money from this whole bitcoin thing. But the price then varied between 18-30 dollars.
We have achieved this with 10 Ati radeon 6950 video cards which we bought second hand. We were skeptic too, but decided to try it anyways.
We were mining at about 3-4 Ghash/sec, which at that time meant a lot for us and for our finances. After 2-3 months of extremely high profits the bitcoin price started to drop and got so low (2-3$) that we decided it`s not worth it anymore due to high energy prices not covered.
We basically did not lose any money at all going out of this business since we sold all the video cards at the same price we bought them or even for a small profit.

Trust me i`ve worked my brain out hard to find a flaw in this and didn`t. Each transaction is unique and very little room for direct hacking. The only problem is the price of one bitcoin which is directly influenced by the number of people farming it.


the whole bitcoin thing was discussed here a while ago, take a look :
http://www.davidicke.com/forum/showthread.php?t=176623

[kanz]

Its has a long way to go before its totally usable imo , however its a very handy thing(depending on how you look at it).

Biggest use ive seen from it is by SR.

[danster82]

Price of bitcoins is not influenced by the amount of people farming, its the other way around, the amount of people farming is influenced by the price of bitcoins, its just another genuis design of it as when the price rises it becomes economicaly viable for farmers and they start again.

Price of bitcoins is dependent on demand, which I can only see increasing.

[kanz]

Anyone got any links to actual sites that the bit coin can be used , or auction sites to sell it?

Was always the biggest problem whenever i looked at it.

[danster82]

Originally Posted by kanz

Anyone got any links to actual sites that the bit coin can be used , or auction sites to sell it?

Was always the biggest problem whenever i looked at it.

Its like I said earlier, bitcoin use is currently, primarily used as an investment, however there are some websites, individuals and business that are starting to accept bitcoins in exchange for goods and services, as this trend increases that is when bitcoin starts looking like a true alternative currency, but that could take years, but this doesnt mean to not get involved in somthing early, you could missing out.

heres one http://www.bitmit.net/en/recent

I mean just take that as one example an ebay but where everyone accepts bitcoin, this could potentialy happen overnight and people would have no huge ebay and paypal or commercial shop fees, it is only a matter of time before its BOOOOMS!

I think its gonna be fun

[kanz]

Originally Posted by danster82

Its like I said earlier, bitcoin use is currently, primarily used as an investment, however there are some websites individuals and business that are starting to accept bitcoins in exchange for goods and services, as this trend increases that is when bitcoin starts looking like a true alternative currency, but that could take years, but this doesnt mean to not get involved in somthing early, you could missing out.

heres one http://www.bitmit.net/en/recent

I mean just take that as one example an ebay but where everyone accepts bitcoin, this could potentialy happen overnight and people would have no huge ebay and paypal or commercial shop fees, it is only a matter of time before its BOOOOMS!

I think its gonna be fun

Cheers mate , will have to look around , yeah the only real option i've seen so far is , acquire bit coin , buy items from a shop that accepts bitcoin , then ebay the stuff.

[rreeve]

Originally Posted by bagatell

But it has been hacked several times.

Bitcoin has never been hacked.

It's an exchange that got hacked that made the mistake of being sloppy with security and private keys.

Its like blaming the bank if you leave your wallet on the train.

[rreeve]

Originally Posted by toxicvibes

rreve just go for it and try.
There is nothing to lose, last summer me and a friend made some really nice money from this whole bitcoin thing. But the price then varied between 18-30 dollars.
We have achieved this with 10 Ati radeon 6950 video cards which we bought second hand. We were skeptic too, but decided to try it anyways.
We were mining at about 3-4 Ghash/sec, which at that time meant a lot for us and for our finances. After 2-3 months of extremely high profits the bitcoin price started to drop and got so low (2-3$) that we decided it`s not worth it anymore due to high energy prices not covered.
We basically did not lose any money at all going out of this business since we sold all the video cards at the same price we bought them or even for a small profit.

Trust me i`ve worked my brain out hard to find a flaw in this and didn`t. Each transaction is unique and very little room for direct hacking. The only problem is the price of one bitcoin which is directly influenced by the number of people farming it.


the whole bitcoin thing was discussed here a while ago, take a look :
http://www.davidicke.com/forum/showthread.php?t=176623

I was looking into this mining myself but it seems over time it will become less and less profitable. Yes, I think we've reached the point now where energy consumption renders mining not worth it anymore.

I am going to invest a couple of hundred into bitcoin though because once all the coins have been created I think it will mature into something very powerful. The fact that it's a flawless system should hold it in good stead and allow it to be become the success it deserves.

I also think it's one of them once in a lifetime investments like early apple and early IBM investments etc etc.

[herzmeister]

Yup, the comparison with a stock is probably the most appropriate, especially if you're talking to gold bugs that is, and it's the first stock in the world for an open source system without being formally organized, and that you can get a hold of without having to register anywhere.

But I keep telling folks to never invest more than you can lose. We can't foresee the future, it's a high risk, and a long-term investment at that. After all, there can be Bitcoin 2.0 one day which may be incompatible.

But for now, most folks in the community believe Bitcoin is like the internet pre-1992 in terms of usability and mass adoption.

Btw, talking stocks, there is also an actual Bitcoin Stock Exchange for Bitcoin-related businesses and, ummm, agorist endeavors, if you wanna take even more risk. Very gray-area, always be careful, but still a real novelty and truly revolutionary that you can do big investments without having to provide your real identity to anyone.

About mining, it may be worthwhile if you don't have to pay for your energy (have surplus solar maybe, or live or have space in a country where it's very cheap), and you'd use special FPGA or even (near future) ASIC hardware dedicatedly built for that purpose. So mining is becoming a specialized business, yep. https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparison

[mistergreen]

Bitcoin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bitcoin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bitcoin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bitcoin is a decentralized electronic cash system that uses peer-to-peer networking, digital signatures and cryptographic proof so as to enable users to conduct irreversible transactions without relying on trust.

What if the network is down for a long time either due to technical fault or some entity has taken over the internet, like UN, and subsequently demands you provide valid identity proof to connect to the net.

In such scenarios you are unable to transact and your real identity may be exposed.

[herzmeister]

Bitcoin might indeed be reason enough for authorities to try to shutdown or change the whole internet as we know it.

But trust me, now that we've tasted freedom, we won't give up on it so easily. The internet infrastructure itself is due to its decentralized structure exactly built to survive even nuclear attacks. And if there'll ever be an authentication layer on top of it, there will be hacks around it, similar to the darknets of today. Also, freifunk and mesh networks will be growing. Hackers already plan to shoot their own satellites into the sky. To close the circle, some say that Bitcoin provides even additional incentives for such initiatives.

[mistergreen]

Originally Posted by herzmeister

The internet infrastructure itself is due to its decentralized structure exactly built to survive even nuclear attacks.

I hope so but i'm sceptical about the survival of the internet, invented by the MIC, for long. After a digital pearl harbour they are going to quickly firewall parts of the internet making some parts of it inaccesible.

Another thing, if i understand this creation of bitcoin correctly, more raw processing power mean more bitcoins. Will not the elites corner the market using their supercomputer?

[herzmeister]

It may get ugly but I see many brilliant minds out there to find solutions, as I said.

Believe it or not, the distributed, combined processing power of Bitcoin users already outperforms the 500 largest super computers together. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=21297.0 (thread contains links to the current real time numbers).

In principle, everyone can participate in mining of course, even banksters. But Bitcoin creation is controlled and regulated by the software, so the more people mine, the less everyone gets. There will never be more than 21 million bitcoins in existence. Around 8 millions have been mined already. Furthermore, if a large concentration of mining power occurs, it will not go unnoticed.

[theabbot 7]

so bitcoin is only digital money?